How Democrats and Republicans switched beliefs

[HAB911]

Strangely, over a century, America's two major political parties gradually reversed identities, like the magnetic poles of Planet Earth switching direction.

When the Republican Party was formed in 1856, it was fiercely liberal, opposing the expansion of slavery, calling for more spending on public education, seeking more open immigration and the like. Compassionate Abraham Lincoln suited the new party's progressive agenda.

In that era, Democrats were conservatives, partly dominated by the slave-holding South. Those old-style Democrats generally opposed any government action to create jobs or help underdogs.

Through the latter half of the 19th century, the pattern of Republicans as liberals, Democrats as conservatives, generally held true. In 1888, the GOP elected President Benjamin Harrison (1833-1901) on a liberal platform seeking more social services.

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/opinion/article/How-Democrats-and-Republicans-switched-beliefs-9226115.php

[Trust Buster]

1. Excellent historical context. Thank you.

[DFW]

2. The change came in the 20th century

Teddy Roosevelt was the greatest Republican president of the 20th century--if you are a Democrat today. Today's Republicans think the greatest Republican president of the 20th century was Ronald Reagan, a notion most of us find obscene.

The horribly corrupt Warren Harding was, I think, the pivotal Republican president. They weren't all as bad as Harding (Gerry Ford, e.g. was misguided, but meant well), but they never were really good again after TR.

“To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”

― Theodore Roosevelt

[malchickiwick]

3. There have been five party realignments since the founding...

... some scholars posit that we are currently witnessing a sixth. History will make that determination.

[LBM20]

4. But here is the rest of the story:

Actually, the "liberal" Republicans were moderate in their social beliefs (less so with the "Radical Republicans" of Lincoln's time, but they were a faction). Lincoln himself was for stopping the spread of slavery, not abolishing it outright, at least not until the end of the Civil War. His Emancipation Proclamation did not include the border states, and it was done largely to pressure England to stay off the South's side because they were anti-slavery by that time.

Republicans continued be social MODERATES and fiscal conservatives for the most part and largely aligned with big business, WASPS, Christianity, traditional gender roles, God, flag, and apple pie.

In fact, in the early 1900's, during their "liberal" phase, Republicans shunned immigrants, so the northern Dems welcomed them, especially in their urban political machine operations. This was huge in causing the Dems to become more progressive and R's to hunker down with the old order and big business. It also led the D's to become very much the party of urban areas.

In the South, the D's down there were always much more conservative and would not officially become R's for many years because Lincoln was an R and they were mad about the Civil War. But with time, the R's became the right wing party and the old DixieCrats all became R's, especially after JFK and LBJ with what they did for African Americans in the South. So then Nixon and Reagan picked up with the "Southern Strategy" which solidified the DixieCrats as R's.

So today we have the D's as the more progressive party largely in cities and the R's in more rural areas. The interesting trend we are seeing now is former R-leaners in the suburbs, moderate types of higher education and income, becoming D's while working class small towners have been becoming R's.

We need to keep the suburbanites and re-capture many of the blue collar folks, and we can by tailoring the message and being strong champions of the working folks on jobs, income, healthcare, etc. Progressive populism.

[MustLoveBeagles]

5. K&R

Bookmarked

[Garrett78]

6. I touched on this when I wrote about how absurd it is for the likes of Steve Schmidt...

...to talk about how the pre-Trump Republican Party was the party of anti-slavery Whigs or even the party of Lincoln, who was no abolitionist.

Anti-Trump Republicans are in an embarrassingly ridiculous state of denial. They made Trump possible. They praise Reagan, who kicked off his campaign by giving a speech about states' rights less than 10 miles from where 3 civil rights workers were murdered. Before that you had the backlash to civil rights legislation that drove Strom Thurmond and the like from the Democratic Party. You had Nixon's Southern Strategy. There was the rise of the Moral Majority and the Powell Memo in the '70s. And every Republican before Trump utilized dog whistling.

[HAB911]

7. They made Trump possible

The monster of their own creation. EXACTLY

[demigoddess]

8. I thought it was in the 60s when LBJ passed civil rights and the southern democrats

went over to the republican party. And they have been going more racist ever since.

[Stand and Fight]

9. It was. n/t